Among The Domestic Animals Which May Generally Be Seen In Native
Houses, Are Gaudy Parrots, Green, Red, And Blue, A Few Domestic
Fowls, Which Have Baskets Hung For Them To Lay In Under The
Eaves, And Who Sleep On The Ridge, And Several Half-Starved
Wolfish-Baking Dogs.
Instead of rats and mice there are curious
little marsupial animals about the same size, which run about at
Night and nibble anything eatable that may be left uncovered.
Four or five different kinds of ants attack everything not
isolated by water, and one kind even swims across that; great
spiders lurk in baskets and boxes, or hide in the folds of my
mosquito curtain; centipedes and millepedes are found everywhere.
I have caught them under my pillow and on my bead; while in every
box, and under every hoard which has lain for some days
undisturbed, little scorpions are sure to be found snugly
ensconced, with their formidable tails quickly turned up ready
for attack or defence. Such companions seem very alarming and
dangerous, but all combined are not so bad as the irritation of
mosquitoes, or of the insect pests often found at home. These
latter are a constant and unceasing source of torment and
disgust, whereas you may live a long time among scorpions,
spiders, and centipedes, ugly and venomous though they are, and
get no harm from them. After living twelve years in the tropics,
I have never yet been bitten or stung by either.
The lean and hungry dogs before mentioned were my greatest
enemies, and kept me constantly on the watch. If my boys left the
bird they were skinning for an instant, it was sure to be carried
off. Everything eatable had to be hung up to the roof, to be out
of their reach. Ali had just finished skinning a fine King Bird
of Paradise one day, when he dropped the skin. Before he could
stoop to pick it up, one of this famished race had seized upon
it, and he only succeeded in rescuing it from its fangs after it
was torn to tatters. Two skins of the large Paradisea, which were
quite dry and ready to pack away, were incautiously left on my
table for the night, wrapped up in paper. The next morning they
were gone, and only a few scattered feathers indicated their
fate. My hanging shelf was out of their reach; but having
stupidly left a box which served as a step, a full-plumaged
Paradise bird was next morning missing; and a dog below the house
was to be seen still mumbling over the fragments, with the fine
golden plumes all trampled in the mud. Every night, as soon as I
was in bed, I could hear them searching about for what they could
devour, under my table, and all about my boxes and baskets,
keeping me in a state of suspense till morning, lest something of
value might incautiously have been left within their read. They
would drink the oil of my floating lamp and eat the wick, and
upset or break my crockery if my lazy boys had neglected to wash
away even the smell of anything eatable.
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